To say of men that they are bad is to say they are worse than we think we are, or worse than the ideal man whose image we have built up on the basis of a certain few.
We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.
It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, with the possible exception of the teacher who backs him or the student who honors him.
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.
There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.
I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance.
One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.
I still understand a few words in life, but I no longer think they make a sentence.
